


Never Ruined

by InkofLethe



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Hogwarts, Romance, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 13:09:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6611785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkofLethe/pseuds/InkofLethe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ginny and Hermione freaking out was not what Harry expected upon arrival home. How can he assure his fiance and best friend that all will be right in the end?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Ruined

**Author's Note:**

> Especial thanks one of my irl best friends, [dawnheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnheart/pseuds/dawnheart), for being my beta reader. Love you forever.

“Hermione?”

She replied with the sharp sound of shattering glass.

Harry hurried down the last few stairs into the basement training room, slowing on the last step to stare at his friend.

She was in the center of the mostly empty room, surrounded by a storm of floating glass disks.

It was a common exercise for auror trainees, but she was using far more than usual, possibly more than he had ever seen before. But she was precise and powerful elegance, each step and spell was perfect, and though dripping with sweat, no blood marred her skin. A magical counter on the wall told him she was shattering them at thirty-nine disks a minute.

His own record was thirty-six.

Eventually, though, she stumbled and a spell ricocheted dangerously.

“Finite!” he commanded. His spell override hers since he was the official owner of the house.

The disks dissolved to nothingness as she whirled to face him.

“What did you do that for!” she shrieked. She was panting, skin red and shiny, but her wand still sparked.

“It’s almost time for dinner. Come on up,” he ordered gently. She glared at him with an expression promising pain, but in the same moment, began to sway in place. “Come on, Hermione, you know you need to.”

She nodded heavily after a tense pause and put her wand away.

 

“Where’s Ron?” Hermione asked softly, as she spun her fork aimlessly around in her bowl of pasta. She was wrapped up in her fluffiest robe, hair hanging in wet tendrils around her.

“Said he was too tired, went home,” Harry replied. She exhaled heavily, and Harry frowned. Ginny had done the same earlier, when he had first came back.

He looked at both women. The three of them had ended up sharing Grimmauld Place upon Ginny and Hermione’s graduation a year ago. Ron still lived at the Burrow for the most part, but he usually came home with Harry so the four of them could have dinner together. They all usually enjoyed it, especially after the dual proposals during the celebratory dinner for Harry and Ron’s completion of auror training barely a month ago.

Today, however, coming back from a later than usual shift, he found Ginny rubbing her skin raw and Hermione in the training room. The first pot of pasta was also threatening to catch fire on the stove, all the water having boiled off.

“What’s going on?” he asked finally.

“A hitch in the wedding preparations,” Ginny murmured. It being the off season for quidditch, she had ample free time and had taken on the bulk of wedding preparations for both couples. The rest of them, after all, were in the office eight or more hours a day.

“What is it this time?”

They mumbled over each other.

“What?”

“The bonding spells,” Ginny murmured.

“The spells?” he repeated. He stared at them as no further explanation came.

“It’s- well, have you heard of magical christenings?”

“What? No?”

“It’s more or less the same as a muggle one, plus some rituals and protection spells and what not. Some are bunk, but some actually work,” Hermione explained. “Every child born in a magical family—at least in Europe—has one.”

“One of the most important and least understood protections is against dark magic. See, most people assume it’s against dark magic being casted at you, but it’s really for if the person casts dark magic. The protection spell is to prevent you from being ‘Corrupted’.” The dainty quotation mark gesture Ginny made contrasted so completely with the way she spitted out the last word.

“Corrupted?”

“It’s sort of hard to explain but there are different types of magic. You don’t learn this unless you go into really high level magic theory. Most standard spells uses either Humas or Anima. A few though — truly dark spells — uses Tenebrae magic. The more you use Tenebrae, the more it will grow, and eventually, it can overwhelm your other magics and you’re Corrupted. It’s really a colloquial word and there’s a medical term for it, but I can’t pronounce it for the life of me. As for what it actually does… well, usually nothing. You can still access your other magics, it’s just a bit harder. Sometimes it can make a person mentally or magically unstable, but that’s an extreme.”

“Very, very few real dark spells are still known today,” Hermione added slowly, staring intensely at the table. “So it’s not usually a big deal for muggleborns to not have the protection, but well, the most widely known ones are the killing and torture curses, and horcruxes ooze Tenebrae into people around them.”

Silence.

Harry mulled over the girls’ information.

“So you’re afraid you’re Corrupted,” he concluded .

“Not afraid, Harry, I know,” Hermione corrected, a touch ruefully. She set her utensil down with a sharp clink.

“How…”

“There’s certain diagnosis spells and if you’re familiar enough with Tenebrae, you can feel it by touching someone or something. I, well- I was under the control of a horcrux for most of a year. The protection’s not that strong. Bill felt it on me a few years ago; he’s felt plenty of dark magic at work.”

“What does this have to do with the wedding though?” he asked finally.

“You can’t use the usual vows if you’re Corrupted. The magic simply won’t bind you. I was, uh, freaking out because I didn’t want to tell you or the rest of my family, then Hermione came home, and she gave me a hug, and I knew she was too and…”

“Calm down, Ginny. Why would anyone care? Everyone knows what happened anyways.”

“They know there was a cursed diary. They don’t know it Corrupted me.”

“You know what the magical community is like,” Hermione added. “They don’t know a thing about something, but it’s unacceptable anyways.”

Ginny nodded in agreement.

“I’m not sure Ron will go through when he finds out,” Ginny murmured quietly.

“With…”

Hermione sighed and wiggled her ring finger in his face.

“He wouldn’t!”

“I don’t think you were there, Harry, but once in fourth year—no, your guys’ fifth year—Ron was joking about Malfoy. How he was surely Corrupted and crazy as his aunt. That he’d never touch him in fear of being Corrupted too. It’s- it’s-”

“Kind of like AIDS in the muggle world,” Hermione finished.

“We’ll make him see it’s not a big deal,” Harry replied resolutely. “And if he doesn’t, well, I’m sorry, but he wouldn’t deserve you—either of you—anyways.”

“Thanks, Harry,” Hermione whispered, while Ginny nodded slowly, absent mindedly rubbing at her pale red wrists until he nudged her.

Ginny smiled faintly before spelling their partly eaten dishes to clear their contents and wait in the sink.

“Do you think I would be Corrupted too?”

“Why…? You would of been magically christened, Harry.”

“But I had a horcrux in me for sixteen years. I’m not sure how much more exposed to dark magic you can get.”

“Oh. Well, yes, probably. Give me your hands, Harry.”

Ginny reached across the table.

Whatever she was doing made him tingle. It was like microscopic, icy balls floating around his insides. Her face screwed up in what he privately thought was an adorable expression. As he was starting to shiver from the feeling, she dropped his hands.

“You’re right, of course, Harry. Hermione, do you think you could do some arithmancy calculations for me? I don’t think there’s a standard formulation for two Corrupted people getting married.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. This is my first published solo-fic so I hope you liked it!


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